Technology and diversity

It is well recognised that the technology workforce in the UK needs a boost in terms of diversity. Many argue that there is real difficulty faced in sourcing new talent at all in the industry given the shortage of people with the appropriate skills and qualifications coming through.

To resolve this issue there must be a push by universities and colleges to provide the right courses, for tech companies to publicise their careers through links to educational establishments, for further work to be done on developing tailored apprenticeships and for tech companies to come together to drive the agenda to attract more candidates. It is in this context that consideration should also be given to widening the diversity of those future employees to promote equality. Attention must then be given to providing equality in terms of pay and opportunity through the careers of those who are hired.

The attached article addresses further approaches to improving diversity for the benefit of technology businesses and is well worth a read.

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The technology industry suffers from a diversity problem – fact. Industry reports show that while 60pc of technical roles are filled by white people, a mere 1-2pc are filled by black people. Another recent study by the British Computer Society (BCS) found that just 17pc of technical roles in the UK are filled by women.